TV Review: Insightful, Hysterical ‘Colin Quinn: Long Story, Short’

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CHICAGO – Colin Quinn began one of the most interesting chapters of his career off-Broadway with a one-man show. The former star of “Saturday Night Live” and “Tough Crowd” has been a great stand-up comedian for years, but this was a more ambitious piece, an insightful examination of human nature from The Bible to “Ice Road Truckers.” The show was so beloved that Jerry Seinfeld took over and directed a version which met with rave reviews when it made the trip to Broadway. HBO filmed one of the performances and it airs tonight, April 9th, 2011. Don’t miss it.

TV Rating: 4.5/5.0

Men have been doing one-man shows on-stage for years. There’s something about one man and a paying crowd that can be truly riveting if it’s well-written and well-performed enough. Being captivated by a performer at the top of his game brings back something primal about the theater experience. It’s one performer, one viewer, and the spoken word — theater at its most basic. As much affection as I have for the one-man show, it doesn’t often translate to the small screen. Sometimes the cracks show up with the close-up of the TV camera. There are very few cracks in “Colin Quinn: Long Story, Short.”

Colin Quinn: Long Story, Short
Photo credit: HBO

The concept of “Long Story, Short” is simple enough that Quinn can seem like he’s free flowing and yet complex enough that it can be sometimes overwhelming in its scope. Quinn basically takes on the entire scope of history, mostly by pointing out that human behavior hasn’t really changed that much since people first started recording it. You’ve never seen a piece before that can somehow get Plato and “Jersey Shore” into the same conversation and still feel consistent.

Colin Quinn: Long Story, Short Photo credit: HBO

The piece takes about 15-20 minutes to really get moving, but then it doesn’t let up for the final hour with moments of true brilliance. Highlights include a comparison of Caesar’s empire to “GoodFellas,” how Britain took over the world with their cunning use of contempt, how France was the only country to lose an empire over sarcasm, and perhaps the best summation of our country in years — “America, the bouillabaisse of the fallen empires.”

I don’t mean to under-sell what Quinn has accomplished here — it’s easily the best thing he’s ever done — but it’s also remarkably light on its feet in that he never spends more than a few minutes on any subject and yet also doesn’t seem manic or tangential. The piece flows from one point to another with such ease that you don’t realize how effortlessly he has made something very complex appear until it’s over. Quinn deserves most of the credit but one can also sense Jerry Seinfeld’s fingerprints all over the piece as the observational intelligence that Seinfeld’s comedy was known for is echoed in Quinn’s delivery.

The presentation of “Colin Quinn: Long Story, Short” is as cleverly simple as its writing. There probably was a point when someone considered numerous graphics a la what Quinn was used to on “Weekend Update” but the screen behind Quinn is used more transitionally between pieces, as a period or applause sign to give Quinn (and the audience) a chance to catch his breath before barreling into the next subject. And the set is reminiscent of a Roman coliseum with steps for Quinn to use as needed throughout the piece.

“Colin Quinn: Long Story, Short” is a piece I had heard about for months, as it started to build buzz off-Broadway. I was intrigued but skeptical. Leave your skepticism at the door. This is a brilliant piece of work and we should be grateful that HBO has given those of us without the opportunity to get to the Big Apple a chance to see it for ourselves.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com [email protected]